Out of Character, Into the Limelight

A crop of unknown veteran actors are happy for the work, nominations

Richard Jenkins, 61, has appeared in more than 50 movies during his 40 years as an actor. "I never considered myself a leading man," he says. "I had a terrific career and was very happy with it."

Last year, for the first time, Mr. Jenkins landed a starring role in a film, as an emotionally stifled professor in "The Visitor." To his shock, he was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor, alongside Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke and veteran Frank Langella.

The Oscars

Mr. Jenkins belongs to a crop of seasoned actors suddenly cast into the spotlight this Oscar season after working for years, sometimes decades, in relative obscurity. Sprinkled among the star-studded nominee lists this year are names that might trip up even movie buffs: Melissa Leo, Viola Davis, Michael Shannon, Taraji P. Henson.

This year's first-time nominees aren't breakthrough ing&eacute;nues (Ellen Page of "Juno," Jennifer Hudson of "Dreamgirls"). They've appeared in dozens of plays, movies and television series. They've been cut from movies and fired from TV shows, struggled to pay rent, and considered quitting. Melissa Leo, 48, who is nominated for best actress for "Frozen River," was cut from the movie "The Fast and the Furious" and fired from her role as a detective on TV show "Homicide: Life on the Street."

The nominees discussed their big roles and preparations for their first Academy Awards ceremony. Here are excerpts.

Viola Davis, 43, was nominated for her 11 minutes on screen with Meryl Streep in "Doubt," as the distraught and frightened mother of Donald Miller, a Catholic school boy who may have been molested by a priest.

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Viola Davis in "Doubt"
Miramax

I was born in St. Mathews, South Carolina, in 1965, on my grandmother's farm. My grandmother delivered me because the midwife was late. Two months later we moved to Central Falls, Rhode Island, because my father groomed and trained race horses and there was a big race track there. We were the first black family in Central Falls. I discovered acting as a way of escaping poverty and feeling like I was an outsider.

I remember watching Cicely Tyson in "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," on television. I was six or seven. It transformed my life, seeing this actress, dark skinned, full lips, Afro. She looked like my mom. I thought, if I could do, that that would make my life. That's how I found my escape.

I majored in theater at Rhode Island College and I went to Juilliard. At Juilliard, it was about stretching, there was a lot of Eugene O'Neill and Shakespeare.

I got my first profession role in '89, in "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," an August Wilson play. I was making $120 a week and I thought I had made it.

The first six years were a struggle, especially the first year out of school, not having money for rent, subway fare or food.

I got the script [for "Doubt"] four months in advance, that's the theater geek in me. I asked my manager, "Can you get me this audition with Scott Rudin and John Patrick Shanley? I will be so prepared." Then I read the scene and I couldn't wrap my mind around this character. I drew on my life growing up in Rhode Island in a predominantly Catholic community, the first black family, living on the periphery. I relied on my craft as an actor to create a human being. I wrote dozens of pages of back story on her relationship with her husband, what her childhood was life, and slowly a human being began to form.

The revelation was, I played it like it was more of a confession, and it was very uncomfortable for me. I think the absolute honesty of the scene strikes people.

All of the sudden, people know me. You go from being anonymous to being recognizable and people wanting you in their movies and wanting you in their plays and they see you. People say, well, you've been around for over 20 years, you're not a new comer, but you feel like a newcomer, it feels like it happens overnight.

This is all new to me. I've never done any of this before. People are dressing me and throwing all this makeup on me. I don't recognize my life anymore.

Richard Jenkins, 61, was nominated for "Best Actor" for his performance as Walter Vale, a lonely, widowed professor in "The Visitor" who gets swept up in the plight of two illegal immigrants.

ENLARGE

Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"
Overture Films

I grew up in DeKalb, Illinois, across form a cornfield. I was an only child. My father was a dentist. My mom was a housewife. I talked to myself a lot. I would go outside in the summer and watch ants. I spent many hours watching ants.

We went to the movies every Friday night or Saturday night. Back then, movies used to change every week and we would go no matter what was playing. I saw everything. That's how I saw the world, with James Bond and Lawrence of Arabia.

When I went to college at Illinois Wesleyan in 1965, it had a school of drama. It was a terrific place for me.

I got married at 22 and my wife, Sharon, and I drove out to Rhode Island, and I was accepted as an apprentice at this theater. I got thrown in with this incredible theater group. Looking back on your life, you see how lucky you were, if you didn't do this one thing, then this wouldn't have happened.

I was there 14 years. I did French farce, "The Iceman Cometh," "Death of a Salesman," "Troilus and Cressida," you just worked all the time. It was a great place to be an actor. But it was movies I always wanted.

I did an independent film, "On Valentine's Day." I played the town drunk. My first studio film was "Silverado." I said "howdie" in one scene and then they shot me in the other scene. I never had a leading role in movies before ["The Visitor"]. I'm a character actor.

I didn't think I would be nominated, so I didn't watch because I knew I would be disappointed. I was home in Rhode Island. It was 8:30 in the morning and nobody had called so I was kind of wondering who was nominated. My son-in-law's dad called me and said "Way to go," and I said, "What do you mean?"

It's been busier [since the nomination], but I can't quantify it. I've learned not to have expectations because they'll cut you down at the knees every time.

I've been stopped more. When I was in L.A. a guy ran out of a drug store and said congratulations.

Melissa Leo, 48, nominated for "Best Actress" for "Frozen River." She plays Ray Eddy, a dollar-store employee in upstate New York struggling to take care of her two boys after her gambling husband runs off, who get's involved in a human smuggling operation.

ENLARGE

Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"
Sony Pictures Classics

I'm a New York City girl. I was born in St. Vincent's hospital in 1960. My dad worked for Grove Press. We lived on the lower east side. My mom took me to Peter Schumann's Puppet theater. It was the thing that made me want to act.

I got a job on "All My Children" and was nominated for a daytime Emmy. But it's been peaks and valleys, wondering if I will ever work again and wondering if I should take up plumbing, and then the peaks. I've been on a lot of sets in a lot of ways as a lot of characters.

There's a truthfulness in my acting. It gets me fired all the time. I will not betray my character's truth. I was on a show called "The Young Riders" with Stephen Baldwin and they fired me. "Homicide" let me go. I didn't fit with their tight sweater format. I was the mom in "Fast and Furious" and never got a phone call about why I was cut from the film.

It was my great good luck that we had shot a short with the same character three years prior to the feature ["Frozen River"]. The short was about the decision of whether or not to go back and get that bag on the ice. So I had this long time with [the character] Ray in my back pocket.

It's phenomenal and awesome to me, the power of this recognition from the academy. The great secret hope is that it brings a greater pallette from which to choose my women. Time will tell. This is the first time in all my years of acting that it looks like there is acting ahead.

I'll go off and get a massage and meet with a personal training. That's getting myself ready in a way that's more my style than liposuction and botox. I'm going to meet with someone to talk about clothing. Although I don't keep up with the names in fashion, somehow I have gotten dressed each day for many years now.

Michael Shannon, 34, was nominated for "Best Supporting Actor" for his performance in "Revolutionary Road." As the edgy, mentally unstable son of Frank and April Wheeler's neighbor, Mr. Shannon, who is 6'4'', teeters and veers around the room as he delivers brutal observations about the Wheeler's marriage.

ENLARGE

Michael Shannon, "Revolutionary Road"
Dreamworks

I was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1974, the year of the tiger.

I was living there with my mom. My dad lived in Chicago. I was looking for something to do after school. I wasn't any good at sports. I tried math team. That didn't work out. I tried the speech team. They gave me a monologue from Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor. I practiced in the mirror. I never got to compete. I was an alternate and the person who was really good at it never got sick.

Acting isn't in the family. I think they thought it was kind of odd. I had the benefit of being in Chicago, the city I would most recommend to any young person interested in acting. Early on, I got by on my kind of innate ferocity. I was a very passionate person. I had a lot of issues and things that I was dealing with, as any teenager would, so I was channeling all of this into performances. Early on I got picked on a lot. I guess I was a mumbler; my articulation was not good. Critics, directors, people would say, 'I can't understand you.' I worked on getting more intelligible.

A lot of times it's really hard when you get a job and you've got to come up with a character's whole back story, and the book [Richard Yates' "Revolutionary Road"] took care of that for us. Reading the book, you get the most beautiful rendering of every minute thought that every character has. Getting this part was almost like getting a coloring book and some crayons. I didn't draw the picture, I could just pick which colors I wanted to put in there.

I thought I was terrible. You can ask my girlfriend, she had to deal with it. I would just mope around and it's like, 'I didn't get it right' and she's like, you say that every time,' and I'm like, 'I know.' But I think that's the curse of anybody who takes this work very seriously. I can't remember any job where I walked away thinking, yeah, give me an award for that. The problem with acting is that no matter what choice you make, there's another one you could have made and you can never be sure.

The nomination did come as a pretty big surprise. I was at Sundance. I had gone to a midnight screening the night before, that's how sure I was I wasn't going to get nominated. I was like, oh, I can stay up until three in the morning. If you do get nominated your phone starts ringing at 6:30 in the morning and it doesn't stop for 24 hours.

I think it will take a little more time to see what the true effects of the nomination are. The jobs I have right now I had before I got nominated. I'll keep doing theater no matter what happens. It's where you learn the most.

Taraji P. Henson, 38, is nominated for best supporting actress for playing Queenie, the proprietor of a senior citizens' home who takes in an infant with the traits of an 80-year-old in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

I was born and raised in D.C. My dad was a metal fabricator. My mother worked for a department store as a manager in the corporate offices. When I was in kindergarten and we were graduating, they had certain people speak. I got up and I was loud and funny and charismatic and the audience laughed and I thought, 'oh my God, I love this feeling. I want this again.'

I tried to get into a performing arts high school and didn't get in. My freshman year in college, in North Carolina, I studied electrical engineering. As fate would have it I failed pre calc, thank God. I called my dad crying and he said, 'That's what you get. That's not what you're supposed to be doing." I came back to D.C. and enrolled in Howard University's drama department.

My first professional job on television was "Smart Guy." I had a recurring role, which led to a role on "Sister, Sister" and then after that it was little small roles here and there. The big break came which I got a leading role in [John Singleton's move] "Baby Boy," which led to "Hustle and Flow," where I played Shug.

I had to research every decade he [Benjamin Button] was alive. Society molds and shapes us. I did a lot of research on aging. I focused on where Queenie's body would give her the most grief, and why.

My grandmother had a get-together. She had eight children, and there was a woman there of every age I had to play, so I watched them move. One of the things I do [in the film] if you're really watching it, you'll see my arm. The older she got, she couldn't straighten it.

I was home sleeping, a little inebriated. My friends took me out the night before because they knew I would be a wreck. They loaded me up with Pinot Noir. I found out [about the nomination] and I was running around in circles with my hand over my mouth. My son could hear me thumping around.

The strangest thing is, when I get to the red carpet, I have a plethora of fans screaming my name. I'm not really used to that. I'm used to getting out of the car and they're like, 'Who's that?'

Now I'm getting scripts. Nothing's etched in stone yet. I'm getting a lot of meetings with studio execs. I'm interested in comedy. Really, I am. I think I'm a better comedic actress. I have you all fooled, you see.

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